A bit of foolishness to ease the tension
Friday, September 29, 2000
-- SYDNEY, Australia
They were fighting to tell stories in the shadow of
Marion Jones: silver and bronze medalists from the
Bahamas and Sri Lanka, trying to betray the natural
order of the medal stand. They had waited a long time
to get a medal, and Pauline Davis-Thompson and
Susanthika Jayasinghe weren't going to let this
five-gold-medal-chasing icon steal the stage Thursday
night. Maybe the world wanted to hear it. Maybe it
couldn't care less. Just sit there, and be still, Mrs.
Jones. They had stories to tell.
This is the beauty of the Olympics. Go chase stories
for days and find yourself in all the wrong places
with all the wrong subjects. And then, sometimes, they
come find you. Walk into an interview room, think this
is the Marion Jones Show, and you find out something
else: The Olympics are just a Jenny Jones Show.
It had started with an innocent question from a news
conference moderator, about what it meant to be the
second medalist in the history of Sri Lanka. They do
this to indulge the medal winners, to let the
runners-up say a few words until it's time to politely
disappear and let the gold medal star do the talking.
So, yes, Sri Lankan runner, your country must be proud
of you.
In a whisper, this slight, shy runner talked to a
packed news conference. "I can't explain," Jayasinghe
said. "You wouldn't understand. They give me, trouble,
trouble, trouble. I give them bronze medal. It'll make
them sad."
This was the night that the Marion Jones Show turned
into Jenny Jones, when the theater of the bizarre
grabbed Olympic Stadium and refused to let go. They
give you trouble, trouble, trouble?
Who?
Why?
Across the table, Davis-Thompson's ears perked. She's
a fast-talking, sprinter from the Bahamas in her fifth
Olympics and she found it unnecessary to be murky with
the details of her life. She was 16 years old at the
1984 Los Angeles Games, and it wasn't until Thursday
night, finishing second to the fastest woman on earth,
she won an individual medal.
It had been a long, hard journey. She wanted everyone
to hear the start of it. She wanted everyone to hear
the mountain she had climbed to get to Sydney, to the
medal stand, to a loud whisper of Marion Jones in the
200 meters.
"I had [big breasts] as a kid," Davis-Thompson said.
"I was kind of a heavy busted, big-butted girl. My
mother took me to get a sports bra. She got me a
hideous color, red. It was disgusting. But my mother
told me I had to wear it day and night. I had to sleep
with it. Finally, she bought me a blue one. But she
was determined that if I didn't make it, it would just
be because of my [breasts]."
This was just a snapshot of the foolery Thursday
night. All around Olympic Stadium, there was the
theater of the absurd. Frenchman Claude Issorat, a
wheelchair racer, was so proud on the medal stand. He
raised his arms in the air to acknowledge the applause
washing over him. Poor Claude waved a little too
feverishly, lost his balance, and his chair tipped
over the lip of the stage and tossed him to soft
landing on the grass. He laughed, we can too.
There was the Australian long jumper, Jai Taurima,
with his black flowing locks, pierced nipple, and
belly-button ring. Before the Games, he was the beauty
warning that black athletes wouldn't jump well in
Sydney because they don't perform well in the cool
weather. Guess who beat Taurima for the gold? A
warm-blooded Cuban, Ivan Pedroso. Afterward, Taurima
conducted his interviews with a cigarette and lighter
in his hand.
"I love smoking and will go through a pack a day,"
Taurima said recently. "The smoking actually helps my
athletics career. I'd be massive if I didn't smoke."
And, yes, there was the Greek sprinter, Konstantinos
Kenteris, winning the 200 meters. This was a big
surprise. Why? Greece hasn't won a men's track medal
since it hosted the Olympics 104 years ago. And, of
course, there was something else, too.
"Uh, do you think people are surprised when they see a
white man running so fast?" a reporter asked.
All night, it was the theater of the absurd. Jones
loved it, too. If the silver and bronze medalists
hadn't put much pressure on her in the race, they were
sure taking it off afterward. Since Davis-Thompson had
solved her self-described "jug-a-lugs" problem, she
turned to Jones and made a prediction for the
400-meter relay: "We're the underdogs, and we love
being in that spot. It's going to make our victory
that much sweeter."
Now, the Bahamian sprinter, Davis-Thompson, turned and
faced the fastest woman on the world.
"Marion," she said, "we're going to give you one hell
of a run."
Nobody laughed as hard as Jones, but with the news
conference nearly over, the Sri-Lankan sprinter
appeared uneasy that she hadn't finished telling her
story. When it was about to break up, Jayasinghe could
sense her chance to speak to the world slipping away.
So, someone asked her again: Trouble? What trouble?
"It was trouble with me," she said. "Doping and sexual
harassment. After I won the world championships in
1997, the [Sri Lankan] sports minister . . . big guy .
. . He wants sex with me. I have husband.
"I told him no."
And so, she told a story about the officials coming to
her house, giving her a drug test and refusing to seal
the urine specimen with her watching. So, Jayasinghe
refused to sign the release. Later, they told her she
had tested positive for C.J. Hunter's drug --
nandrolone. No longer would officials let her train in
Sri Lanka. No longer was she welcome.
The greatest runner in Sri Lanka moved to Los Angeles,
and somehow, found a coach to train her for the
Olympics.
"I had no money," she said. "I had nothing."
Now cleared of the drug charges, Jayasinghe was in the
Olympics, had a bronze medal, and wanted to tell her
government what it could do with it.
"Find me another country," she said.
Always, this is the beauty of the Olympics. Sometimes,
the story finds you.
Readers who wish to communicate with Adrian
Wojnarowski should write to him in care of The Record
Sports Department, 150 River St., Hackensack, N.J.,
07601, or fax him at (201) 646-4428.